World War II: Invasion Of Poland

[JakeStratham]

A recent "In Focus" segment offers a glimpse of the first days of World War II as Germany moved into Poland. A few of you might enjoy the pics.

Synopsis from The Atlantic:

In August of 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty -- one week later, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. The first attack of the war took place on September 1, 1939, as German aircraft attacked the Polish town of Wielun, killing nearly 1,200. Five minutes later, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on a transit depot at Westerplatte in the Free City of Danzig. Within days, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany and began mobilizing their armies and preparing their civilians. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Polish forces surrendered in early October after losing some 65,000 troops and many thousands of civilians. In November, Soviet forces invaded Finland and began a months-long battle dubbed the Winter War. By the beginning of 1940, Germany was finalizing plans for the invasions of Denmark and Norway. Collected here are images of these tumultuous first months and of Allied forces preparing for the arduous battles to come.

View of an undamaged Polish city from the cockpit of a German medium bomber aircraft, likely a Heinkel He 111 P, in 1939.

German soldiers comb the Westerplatte after it was surrendered to German units from the Schleswig-Holstein landing crew, on September 7, 1939. Fewer than 200 Polish soldiers defended the small peninsula, holding off the Germans for seven days.

A ten-year-old Polish girl named Kazimiera Mika mourns over her sister's body. She was killed by German machine-gun fire while picking potatoes in a field outside Warsaw, Poland, in September of 1939.

The scene of devastation seen on Ordynacka Street in Warsaw, Poland on March 6, 1940. The carcass of a dead horse lies in the street among enormous piles of debris. While Warsaw was under nearly constant bombardment during the invasion, on one day alone, September 25, 1939, about 1,150 bombing sorties were flown by German aircraft against Warsaw, dropping over 550 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the city.

German troops marching into the city of Bromberg (the German name for the Polish city of Bydgoszcz) found several hundred German nationals dead from Polish sniper fire. The snipers were equipped with arms by the retreating Polish forces. Bodies are shown on a forest road, September 8, 1939.

More pics here.

 

[cryptix]

some crazy photos in that set. wow.

 

[ZuzanaDesigns]

That first pic is amazing.

 

[Pulse]

Damn, those are some crazy pics. Anyone watch that Third Reich documentary that was on a little while back? Some fucked up shit..

 

[suave]

that first pic is wallpaper worthy

am i really going to have to rewatch band of brothers now

 

[tainted]

Chilling. Remember that probably 99% of the German soldiers you see in those pictures didn't live to see 1946. Hope we never see a war like that again.

 

[Dgillen]

Tragic, but the only good fascist is a dead fascist. Never again.

 

[vitz.]

I'm a Pole and I have seen many worse pictures than this..

You might find it interesting:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twDouTqS4c8"]YouTube - ‪MIASTO RUIN FULL HD - 6 min 49 sek slideshowvideo‬‏[/ame]

This is how Warsaw looked in 1945..Here is the official site of the movie: MIASTO RUIN (its waiting for official premiere, this is only trailer)

This is how Warsaw look now:

 

[Mikesev]

Worth noting that Poland was invaded by the Germans and Russians on both fronts at the same time. They really had no chance and the fact they held out for several weeks was incredible.

 

[gotthefeeling]

Yes, you will see WW3 - its gonna happen because of the 'sheeple'

illuminati are gonna party soon once that $ crashes its New World Order time,

 

[Fatbat]

I'm a Pole and I have seen many worse pictures than this..

You might find it interesting:

Thanks for the Miasto Ruin link man, yes, that is interesting if not heart breaking. Besides the terrible loss of life (and not to make light of that in any way), so much irreplaceable architecture was lost throughout the war as well.

I actually have a rather large collection of original WWII photography, about 10,000 original lose images and a few complete albums, that I've wanted to get online for some time but haven't yet. It's an expensive hobby, especially when you talk about collecting rarer images, but it's fascinating. I like candid shots of soldiers and people as well as armor and aircraft.

Here's a small selection of some test images I scanned 7 or 8 years ago and made into quick galleries for viewing. Not all the shots are riveting, but there's some interesting stuff in there...

Misc Single Images

Misc Single Images

 

[Magic Hat]

In 1939, the Polish army still maintained many cavalry squadrons, which had served them well as recently as the Polish-Soviet War in 1921.

[insert Pollock joke here]

 

[m0rtal]

Wow crazy images.

So depressing...especially this..

I'm a Pole and I have seen many worse pictures than this..

You might find it interesting:

Something interesting, I don't know the full details but here's the gist of it. My grandma who passed away a few years back was waiting for a train at one point during the war not too far from home. The Germans showed up and basically snatched everyone up from the station and put them on a train to Germany to work or so they said.

During night time the train had to be stopped because either something stopped working properly or the switch for the tracks stopped working, something along those lines.

A bunch of people including my grandma bolted into the forest. This is what I don't know the specifics about, how many guards, circumstances, etc... It was about 100 km from her home at this point. They would walk during the night and stay in one spot during the day to avoid capture till they got to where they needed to go.

 

[BlokBlok]

Ive always been consumed with WWII and history in general, I wish more people would take tim to learn more about it, it was only ~70 years ago and still has an impact on modern day. I also wish more people would take the time to learn about it.

I found this picture pretty powerful, that train must have been a site to see-

 

[igl00]

Worth noting that Poland was invaded by the Germans and Russians on both fronts at the same time. They really had no chance and the fact they held out for several weeks was incredible.

indeed. its a shame people are not that well informaed about how it used to be back then.

france and tzech let hitler in withotu fight so their countires were not detroyed. poland was fighting so it got pwned but people kept their pride and honor

 

[JakeStratham]

I actually have a rather large collection of original WWII photography, about 10,000 original lose images and a few complete albums, that I've wanted to get online for some time but haven't yet. It's an expensive hobby, especially when you talk about collecting rarer images, but it's fascinating. I like candid shots of soldiers and people as well as armor and aircraft.

Here's a small selection of some test images I scanned 7 or 8 years ago and made into quick galleries for viewing. Not all the shots are riveting, but there's some interesting stuff in there...

Misc Single Images

Misc Single Images

There are some really interesting shots in your collection - particularly, the destroyed German and Russian tanks.

I'm most drawn to the images of people impacted by war. Of the Atlantic's "In Focus" collection, the image that had the biggest effect on me was that of the girl grieving over the body of her dead sister.

I'm not an emotional guy, and death is everywhere, but kids getting mowed down during war boils my blood.


At vitz.: that is a beautiful image of present day Warsaw. Great example of man's ability to rebuild following devastation.

 

[lukep]

I've read somewhere that just weeks before the invasion of Poland a 'German motion picture camera crew' went in and filmed part of a 'movie' of the polish fortifications, which the Poles of the day showed to these moviemakers with pride...

In reality it was just Hitler correctly sensing their pride would be their undoing and sent in the fake moviemakers to get highly-detailed recon on the enemy.

I can't find word of this in wikipedia, however... Anyone else hear this rumor/factoid?

 

[ItsYoBuddy]

Love history, find it so fascinating. Being Polish, I would love to go to Poland one day and visit the historical spots. The first picture is awesome, would be scary as shit to shoot out of that though.

That picture with the train tank or whatever is crazy. I never knew they had those, wow.

Fatbat, awesome collection.

 

[kingofsp]

This is how Warsaw look now:

Yeah looks pretty civilized, but a buddy of mine was just there and was confronted by three drunk dudes in a park who harassed him and took his phone. Then after he beat one down, they disappeared, only to have that guy come back and threaten him with a broken beer bottle, which he threw and missed, and then ran away again. A bit off-topic, but I thought I'd share anyway!

I actually have a rather large collection of original WWII photography, about 10,000 original lose images and a few complete albums, that I've wanted to get online for some time but haven't yet. It's an expensive hobby, especially when you talk about collecting rarer images, but it's fascinating. I like candid shots of soldiers and people as well as armor and aircraft.

I scored a bunch of WWII era Life magazines at an estate sale recently. Lots of great stuff in there. Hopefully I get around to scanning some of it soon.

 

[WickedJoe]

You guys might be interested in this documentary on Netflix:
"Battle for Warsaw"

It's about the Polish uprising in WW2 that resulted in the death of 250,000 of them. We Americans rarely acknowledge the fact that we are able to retain our great strength because we don't have any nearby enemies. European countries often get trampled upon by the Invader-of-the-Week. Poland is one of the biggest examples of this being between Germany and Russia.

I am fascinated by historical wars too. WW2 and the American Civil War are the all time most interesting to me. If you guys have not seen "The Civil War" by Ken Burns it's an all-time classic.